#BadAssActorShit

Star Wars came out when I was 13, and I immediately connected with Princess Leia Organa because she had brown hair like me, but mainly because of her sarcasm (you young people today call it snark) and the bravery and ease with which she stood up to scary male authority figures: "The harder you tighten your fist, Lord Vader, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." She also held her own against brash young guys who were full of themselves: "You scruffy looking nerf-herder!" She choked Jabba the Hut with the chains he used to bind her, and if that isn't using your erotic capitol, I don't know what is.


She never got a light saber, even though the Force was as strong with her as with her twin, but she shot that blaster like nobody's business. She was clever and strong and resourceful and she never gave up, even when Han was frozen and she was captured, or later on when she was surrounded by horrifically cutesy Ewoks.


As General Organa, she ran a tight ship and never suffered fools any more than she did when she was younger. And she was far more beautiful than when she was thin and unwrinkled because she had come uncompromisingly into herself and grown stronger and more solid.

She was my generation's Hermione Granger, whom she inspired as much as, I hope, Carrie Fisher has inspired Emma Watson, both of them brilliant artists and champions of women and other oppressed groups.
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Rest In Peace, General Leia Organa and Carrie Fisher. You both have worked with the strength of galaxies, and we will continue that work with thanks and love and always hope.

~by Miriam Rheingold Fuller